


beg to be adored

by scramjets



Category: Gotham (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Canon-Typical Violence, Character Study, F/M, M/M, Mildly Dubious Consent, Original Character Death(s), Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, war imagery
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-11-20
Updated: 2017-06-15
Packaged: 2018-05-02 13:24:09
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 3
Words: 15,992
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5249726
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/scramjets/pseuds/scramjets
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A reopened cold case forces Jim to address where he stands with Oswald Cobblepot. But this is Gotham, and he can't do that without negotiating who he is, his past and his present, along the way.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This fic completely disregards S2, and starts some time after where S1 finishes off. Any issues, please let me know; this story hasn't been externally beta'd.

He’s riding passenger side in the Humvee, the weight of his M4 a familiar comfort in his hands, finger sweaty against the trigger as he scans the horizon that jostles along.

The smell of diesel is thick in the air and it blends with the more encompassing scent of sand, sheets and sheets of it, packed and baking beneath the steady, unrelenting glare of the sun. But then, it also smells like five unwashed adult men, too: all musk and sweat and unwashed combat uniforms. It’s in turn disgusting and familiar.

James watches the scenery pass in a monotonous blur of sand, sparse trees and the occasional concrete house, distractedly aware of the sweat that slides down his neck and into the collar of his uniform.

He tucks the butt of his rifle securely against his body and unpeels his hand from the trigger, fingers gritty and sticky with sand and sweat that he wipes on the leg of his trousers, the material stiff with it, and he turns to the driver of the Humvee – a Marine who’s known as Casper because of his white-blond hair and pale skin which is, these days, scattered with an distracting number of freckles.

Casper’s laughing, all teeth, and the corners of his brown eyes are crinkled as he flicks a look back, and then the vehicle is flung through the air, metal tearing, the suspended-boom of an explosion coming a beat later and—

-

Jim wrenched himself out of the dream, skin damp and slick with sweat as he fought to catch his breath. It came out of him in punches, dry and raw in the narrow room, and it took a long, long while to calm, heart pounding against his ribcage hard enough to rattle his teeth. He had kicked his sheets off in his sleep, only now there were goose bumps prickling along his arms as his body cooled in the chilly room. Jim took another shuddering draw of air, held it, and released it before he staggered off the bed and into the closet sized bathroom.

The shower he took was hot and perfunctory. It felt like he stood there a long time; like he spent a good hour letting water pound against his back and swirl at his feet with a bubbling gurgle, but when he glanced at the time once dried and dressed, it had only been twenty minutes.

Jim blinked at the neon red numbers as they flipped from 03:59 to 04:00, and he tossed around the idea of slipping back into bed, sent a dubious look at the loose rumple of sheets, strewn and twisted across the mattress, off-colour with sweat. Then he scrubbed a hand across his face, felt the stubble of two days grate across his palm.

Sleep wasn’t a thing that was going to happen, he conceded, and he moved to the living area; a tight room jammed alongside the kitchen with no formal space for dining. His house keys were slung on the kitchen bench where he had dumped them earlier, and the metal glinted at him, reflecting the light that filtered through the gauzy curtains; it flashed like a blade.

Jim fumbled for the light switch and squinted in the brighter, cooler glow that flooded the small room. He edged another look to his keys, told himself that it was nothing and then sunk into the couch. It had come as a ratty addition to the apartment, the fabric worn thin in places with at least one burn mark that Jim had poked his finger in when he had found it. Barbara would have hated the couch – it sagged in the middle and had the faint impression of dog deep in the cushions that never failed to make Jim’s nose itch.

Jim tipped his head back against the squashy cushions and stared at the ceiling. The person who lived above him was fond of stomping around in the late evenings, staggered quick-steps and long slides across the floor. Jim had caught the occupant once as she had stepped out her door, head turned over her shoulder as she said ‘bye!’ to whoever she left behind for the afternoon – and the tights she wore along with the black ballet shoes tied and slung over her shoulder had proved reason enough for Jim to turn on his heel without saying a word. She had been quiet the last few nights. Somebody must have mentioned something.

Eventually, the patterns on the ceiling blurred and Jim heaved himself upright to address the mess of papers on the low table in front of him instead. GCPD protocol stipulated that bringing official police work to personal premises was disallowed, reason being that it presented the opportunity for tampering: too easy to remove, just as simple to add; all it came down to was who had bought an officer out. Kringle had pressed the documents into his hands none the wiser, and Jim had caught a wisp of her perfume, something sweet and flowery, the impression of which lingered on the papers and prickled across his conscience.

Jim flicked through the plain manila folders, the corners furry and the papers inside crumpled with large portions of _[redacted]_ stamped across various reports and statements, while other pieces of information were blacked out entirely.

Anything he could actually read, Jim had long since memorized, and even now with something of a clear head, Jim felt at loose ends: he was humouring himself by combing over what he had. Fact was the documents lacked, and it was like trying to make sense of a book with every other page ripped out.

The words blurred after a short while, Jim’s attention thinning until it dissolved completely and he let the sheets drop. He pressed the heel of his hand to his eye, relished in the discomfort of it and so he pushed harder, until the pain threatened to tip into something visceral, like the worst crimes he had witnessed – all anger and betrayal, of being backed into a corner and lashing out.

It took a cup of coffee until he could return back to his own handwritten notes, his script small but tidy. He had rewritten the parts that had belonged to Maroni and Falcone, amended what he knew of Fish Mooney, still missing, likely deceased – and now everything; all his notes – came to a single focus, like the centre of a spirograph before the lines looped back out into a pattern of controlled chaos.

Jim leaned forward and carefully set his elbows against his knees, let the weight and pressure of his upper body pin him in place as he considered his next set of thoughts.

There had been silence after the warehouse. The same empty, deafening sort that followed an explosion. Jim hadn’t expected it. But then, what had he been expecting – for Cobblepot to contact him? For Falcone to step back into his role of the Don? For everything to fall back into a rough estimate of how things had been before? And that Gotham would eventually sort itself out?

A foot of Jim’s thoughts sometimes anchored him to a part of his life that he had repeatedly tried to close. Only now it shifted, and Jim stared at the folders, the shield of the GCPD set in the middle of each, the integrity of the eagle framed by the promise of olive branches.

If he had killed Cobblepot.

A part of Jim recoiled, but he caught it and straightened it – allowed the other outcomes to play out.

He tried again: If he had killed Cobblepot.

If he had taken him to the end of the pier… the memory of the day crisp, the angles, the lines, all bold and sharp: the sound of the wood beneath their shoes, the feel of Cobblepot’s jacket bunched in his fist and the warmth of his body beneath that, resisting as Jim shuffled them along.

If he killed Cobblepot then, would he be here now. Or would he be on his honeymoon, the date of his wedding to Barbara already gone. He recalled the pamphlets Barbara had left out, the unsubtle hints of hyper-saturated sun and sand; beach sand, not desert sand – only the salty smell of the ocean gave way to rust, and rain, and unpleasant wet smell of fish, and he was back on the pier, distractedly aware of the tremor of Cobblepot’s body, and how white his skin looked against the flaky red blood on his face.

He imagined pressing the gun to the back of Cobblepot’s head. He used to kiss Barbara there, too, when she curled on the lounge, busy with her work, and he would nudge up behind her and press a kiss – there – half a hand span up from the base of her skull, where the scent of her was lovely and deep, and she used to turn and catch his mouth, let the kiss grow heated, her papers forgotten.

He guided his imagination back on course and, framed by the early morning light and the sparse belongings he owned, Jim pressed the barrel of the gun to that spot against Cobblepot’s head, finger tight on the trigger—…

The image in his head stuttered out, the detail and brightness of it dying like a flame, and Jim released a breath along with it, head tilting back against the couch to stare up at the ceiling once more, and he stayed like that until the sun crept into the room and it was time to get ready for work.

-

Harvey, in some misguided attempt to soothe troubled waters, told him that they had a batch of recruits who had joined because they had admired the work that Jim was doing. Only his face crumpled the second his said it, ugly, like he had swallowed a lemon.

“Nah,” he said, “can’t do it. I ain’t a lair, Jim. It’s not my burden to bear. You’re on your own.”

Jim mustered up the driest, “Thanks,” he could, one arm still stuck in the sleeve of his suit jacket, the other already grabbing at the paperwork piled on his desk.

Still, though, the atmosphere of the station was one of deliberate business – as if the death of Maroni, and the following retirement (Jim had never really considered that Dons could retire, and wondered how Falcone would enter it on his tax forms, the thought had quickly been chased by the absurdity of Don Falcone setting aside the time to fill in his own tax paperwork) the following retirement of Don Falcone; the disappearance of Fish Mooney and the silence from Cobblepot were separate, unrelated and insignificant events.

Petty crime had come to a momentary standstill with the prison cell, oddly kept in the centre where officers could snidely jeer, holding a single sleeping drunk who curled up in a tight ball in one corner. A scrunched up paper ball had been tossed inside, but the throw had been poor and it sat a good foot from its intended target.

“Grace period,” Harvey had said, mistaking or possibly ignoring the intention of the look Jim passed him when he had noticed the ball. “Give it another week, then there’ll be a whole lotta players muscling each other up for territory. Word is that the Irish mob’re looking for a way back in now. Let me be the first to thank you for all the paperwork.”

Lee visited Jim at his desk an hour later. He heard her heels first; sharp and arresting over the hum of talk , and he straightened in his chair, heard Harvey smother something, ignored it, and turned to smile at her.

The grin she gave back was bitten at the corners, but she always smiled like that, as if she was tucking away something broader and more encompassing. Jim stood, touched his hands to her arms and kissed her. It was chaste, and Jim felt the uncomfortable weight of the precinct’s attention on his back, but he set his awareness aside – he could afford to do this.

Harvey cleared his throat and Jim withdrew to give him a look. Lee laughed, head ducked, her hands soothing over the clean lines of her dress.

“Well,” she said, glancing to Jim, hair sweeping across her shoulder. “I’ll see you at lunch, then.”

Jim watched her go and swivelled to catch Harvey doing the same thing which he wordlessly denied, his hands up and palms out in doubtful contrition.

The morning passed with nothing but paperwork and phone calls, Jim’s primary focus being a string of murders from a year ago. The McCreedy case, accompanying papers old and slightly yellow, except for the handful Jim slid inside with care; almost glowing in their newness and smelling strongly of toner. Jim rubbed his hands over his face, then through the growing length of his hair.

“Time for a break?” Harvey said.

“Time for lunch with Lee,” Jim told him.

Harvey made a face. “You live with the woman and you work with the woman. Now you’re taking lunch with her. You ever heard of the expression, ‘too much of a good thing’?”

Jim stood, removed his jacket from his chair and slipped into it, tugging the cuffs of his sleeves down to soothe the wrinkles that had bunched underneath the arms.

“We don’t live together,” he said, finally.

“Wait,” Harvey said.

Jim slid his cell phone into his pocket and grabbed his keys, slid his finger through the ring and pressed them against his palm.

“What?" Harvey continued, once he had processed the statement. “How long you guys been at it for? Half a year? Why haven’t you shacked up yet?”

“That,” Jim told him. “Is none of your business.”

-

Lee took them for lunch at a diner not far from the precinct. A small place, just enough for a kitchen, a counter and the half dozen tables shoved inside. Lee tucked herself into one of the chairs and tilted her head up to Jim, who had paused, one hand wrapped around the top bar of the seat opposite, his knuckles white.

“Something the matter?” Lee asked.

Jim slid his attention over the table top, the pale, wooden surface littered with shallow scars. “It’s—not a good table.”

Lee blinked, before her confusion turned to realisation. “Oh,” she stood and pushed her chair back in place, then gestured to the tight space of the dining area. “Your pick.”

Jim shuffled them into a table with a wobbly leg, but that also gave him a clear, sweeping view of the rest of the diner – not that view was much: kitschy signage and oddities perched on every clear surface, a bulletin board with the seasonal menu pinned in the middle and surrounded by happy snaps of various patrons, some well-known and others not so much. Jim could see at least two low ranking gang members smiling down at him, and his attention kept shifting to the photos, like they were the real thing. The entire diner grated against Jim’s awareness, and he plucked the laminated menu perched between the salt and pepper and directed the brunt of his attention there.

“What do you feel like?” Lee asked from behind her menu.

Jim blinked and focused on the words, told her the first thing that caught his attention: an open grill something. Lee manoeuvred out of her chair, placed their orders and returned to the table.

“So,” she said, “how’s work? I know you want to talk it out. Do you know how I can tell?”

“How can you tell?” Jim asked.

Lee crossed her arms on the table and leaned across with a playful conspirative air. She pressed a finger to centre of Jim’s forehead, where Jim felt the barest hint of her nail.

“There’s a wrinkle. Right here. It tells me you’re thinking.” And she sat back, satisfied, as Jim rubbed the spot absently.

“The McCreedy case from five years ago,” he said.

Being able to talk to Lee about the less favourable aspects of his job had been a private relief for Jim, having always refrained for Barbara’s sake – Barbara, who had stared at him with wide blue eyes across the dinner table, fingers tight around her cutlery when he had been too casual or gracious in his description.

“Three bodies – all white males. Throat slit, bled out and dumped at the McCreedy manor. Two of the three had been new muscle for Maroni. Third guy had been one of Falcone’s.” Jim paused, his attention settling on the figurine of a cat that sat beside the ancient cash register.

For a moment, he was reminded of his neighbour’s cat when Jim was growing up. His dad was still alive then, and Jim used to wait at the door for him to pull up into the drive, his breath and the heat of his hands fogging up the glass panel of the door. Penny used to slink through the front yard while Jim waited, and if it was sunny enough, she’d sprawl out and wriggle on a cushion of grass. She disappeared one day, not long after his dad died like a footnote to his misery.

Jim returned his focus to Lee: “They had another one turn up in the past week. White male. Known ties to Maroni. Body dumped at the McCreedy’s.”

The McCreedy manor was an abandoned mansion on the outskirts of the city – a popular razing ritual for drunk teenagers and a squatter paradise.

And then there was Joey Azzarello, whose family owned a newsagency on a busy city strip. Joey had only graduated in the past year, and spent most of his time working. Except not for his family. They hadn’t seen him for months, his mother said, eyes bloodshot and puffy, apologising every time she had to stop to wipe her nose.

“He was always a good boy,” Maree’s voice had cracked in the middle of her sentence, and she pressed the flat of her hand against her glossy eyes and looked up, blinking rapidly. “He was such a good boy.”

The interest on Lee’s face turned to confusion and Jim watched the expression shift with a degree of fascination, the tilting of Lee’s head as her brow furrowed. “Wait. So, definitely the same—?”

“Similar enough M.O. Same location. So for now we’re assuming the same guy,” Jim paused and considered the menu he still held. There was a sliver of something dried in the corner of it, and Jim chipped it off with his thumbnail before he said: “Essen… she gave this to me personally. Says I have a knack.”

The photographs of the three crime scenes dated five years prior had shown the victim’s throat neatly cut, and then Joey Azzarello, whose certificate of death read that he died from blood loss from a severed artery. Cause: slit throat. Only ‘slit’ had been a generous term, considering the blunt hacking job which left sinew and cartilage exposed, blood pooled around the vic’s head in a macabre halo.

Jim felt a muscle in his jaw slide, and he unclenched his teeth, distractedly aware of the pits he was biting on the inside of his cheeks. He ran his tongue along them and tried not to wince at the pinprick sparks of pain.

“They let the case lapse,” Jim said.

He didn’t bother to tamp down his reaction to the statement, hands spasming on the table before he clenched them. Lee slid a hand over his fist, startling him—

“Ham cheese open grill and a chicken Caesar salad.”

Jim didn’t flinch exactly, he had observed the waitress, Mel, her tag read – a middle aged woman in a check dress and apron, the lower left corner torn as if it had been caught on something and yanked free – he had observed Mel coming from the kitchen, plates in hand, but the pitched nasal of her voice made something tick over in his head and Jim withdrew.

Lee sat back, tilted a smile up to Mel as she set the plates down and sashayed off. The dull crack of Lee’s fork against the plate turned Jim's attention back, and he stared at the bright yellow cheese melted over two thick slabs of bread before he started eating mechanically. Any pleasure used to receive from food had been removed in his years of service – first from the MRE kits: the bland, desert-warm rice and chili – and then in hospital, recovering on mystery meat stew and neon blue jell-o. It took a lot to make him notice food. And then there was Jim’s natural suspicion when it came to vegetables, carried over from when he’d been a kid.

“So, what do you think?” Lee asked some time later, when her lunch had been half cleared.

Jim said, “Twice is a coincidence and trice is a pattern. Someone’s targeted these inductees. Didn't matter if they’re Maroni or Falcone’s men.”

“Do you think it matters now?” Lee asked, “seeing that they’re both,” she paused and finished with: “Out of commission?”

Jim wiped his hands on a thin papery napkin, then finished his glass of tepid water. Lee had voiced what had been one of his primary concerns.

“It might. It might not,” he said.

Lee mirrored him, finishing her water and then grabbing her purse to touch up her lipstick. Jim watched her put it on, the muted red of it making him review all the times he kissed her and tasted it, a little waxy and smudged on his mouth in a way that made Lee look at him and laugh. Jim licked his own lips and transferred his attention down to his empty plate.

“Harvey said to sit on it,” Jim said, “let the guy make his move, now that Maroni and Falcone are out of the picture. It's been five years.”

“What do you think?” Lee asked again, now done with her make-up, arms crossed on the table again as she leaned forward.

“I think it wouldn’t matter – obviously, whoever the vics worked for were no consequence for the killer – as long as it was someone working for the families. Only—“

Jim cut his attention back to the bulletin board, where various faces grinned down at him. The café was fond of putting up eating competitions and give-aways, there were a lot of special days, half-price off days; anything to drum up legitimate business in Gotham where everything was crooked and ugly.

“The only person left is Cobblepot,” Jim said it slow, testing the weight of the statement. “Assuming that there's going to be a repeat performance.”

“Do you believe he has anything to do with the murders?”

And then Jim was at the pier again, the air frigid from the water, biting through his suit jacket as he hauled Cobblepot out of the car.

Cobblepot had stumbled, ungainly, the weight of his body uneven and postured oddly unlike when Jim had seen him last, back in the alley beside Mooney’s club, bat loose in hand, neatly dressed and gleeful as he beat the shit out of some schmuck who had winced a grin up at Jim with bloody teeth.

The knee, Jim had realised, Cobblepot could barely use it, half dragging his leg after him. It was this second meeting that defined every single time they crossed paths following, the begging stutter, Cobblepot’s cold frantic hands and the repeated warnings and promises of wars and information; Cobblepot throwing Jim any trick he knew, hoping one would catch.

Jim scrubbed a hand over his face, forced himself to put together the entire picture of Oswald Cobblepot – quiet and conniving, his ability to plan and manipulate beyond the scope of Jim’s understanding.

“He wouldn’t,” Jim said. “It—there’s no greater outcome.”

“Okay,” Lee said, “do you have a plan, then? Or are you going to take Harvey’s advice this time?” She said it with a smile that blunted the bulk of her words, but Jim understood that she had meant them. “You realise that he sometimes has good suggestions, right?”

“They let the case lapse,” Jim said again, firm. “The fourth vic had been there three days before anybody found him.”

The smell had been horrific, even in the crisp forest air which served to slow the rate of decomposition just so. Jim had to fight the urge to cover his face, acutely aware of how tight his expression was set, his jaw aching as he crouched down beside the body in search for any immediate clues. Nygma had been by his side, seemingly unaffected and unusually quiet as he wrote in his notebook with a familiar cramped hand, the smell of something antiseptic from his person blunting the edge of rotting flesh.

“I’ll talk to Cobblepot,” he said, “see if he knows anything.”

-

Jim’s first stop had been the club, nestled deep in the heart of the theatre district. The strip it sat on was quieter these days, and Jim didn’t know whether it was because the entertainment lacked, or if people were disinclined to venture out beyond their front doors. He couldn’t blame them for either explanation, really.

Externally, the venue looked like it hadn’t changed hands at all, save for the logo bolted to the wall. Jim traced the outline of the umbrella insignia, the purple glow of it diffused in the evening light. It looked innocuous, an idle invite from one friend to another: please, come in from the rain.

Jim squared his shoulders and went inside.

The place was near empty, a couple of young stragglers, dressed up for a night out – all modcloth and black make-up. He had never really been a part of any particular cliques as a teen – and the goth and alternate types, the ones that lingered by the bleachers like storm clouds had been, at first, curiosities before simply an expected aspect of high school scenery. The closest Jim had ever gotten to one was a shared table in science, and a mutual and unspoken like for Good Charlotte.

Jim saw a patron whisper something into their partner’s ear, the partner who then batted them away. It hadn’t been a flirty gesture, judging by the set mouth and the jutted jaw of the first patron, and their partner hastily packed up her purse and stood, slinging the strap over her shoulder. Jim stepped out of the way as they left, the patron’s hand settled low on their partner’s back. The door shut after them with all the finality of a funeral march.

A host swanned up not long after, all slicked parted hair and satin lapels. He looked older than the ones Mooney would have hired, and his features were non-remarkable: he wasn’t handsome, wasn’t ugly, but he was impeccably dressed, and Jim doubted there would have been a trace of dust on the white gloves he wore.

“Welcome to Oswald’s,” he said.

Jim cut straight to the point, clipped the tail of the host’s statement when he asked: “Is he here?” then added, in case it wasn’t obvious: “Cobblepot.”

“Ah,” the host said. His voice was curiously flat, bore no discernible accent. “I’m afraid he doesn’t work here anymore.”

Jim had allowed his attention wander through the club, from the bar with neatly lined bottles to the stage, which had been re-done, staggered for live music – the lighting focused on where the singer would have stood, only the stand stood empty – but his attention snapped back to the host. “What? No? Can you tell me where I can find him.”

The host blinked mildly, as if he hadn’t expected Jim to ask; Jim read it differently, the pause a touch too long, and he shifted his weight, let the badge on his hip catch the light.

The host’s expression shifted, tightened at the edges, a strain in the undercurrent of his voice when he said, “Sir, I’ve been given strict inst—“

“Two ways we can do this, kid,” Jim interrupted, tone even but threat implicit. “Now. You want to start again?”

-

The manor that Cobblepot resided in must have come with the status upgrade from minion to sole surviving gang member of rank in the city.

Jim took in the size of it, the grandiose that equalled the Wayne Manor. This one had two wings from what he could see – branched out from the central bulk of the house. Jim followed the gentle curve of the extended driveway, where it led to the pillared portico, softly lit. Jim took a long breath and let it out, letting his eyes close for a second as he steeled his resolve.

It was well past knock-off by now, and he had already sent a text to Lee, telling her not to wait up. He received a response not long after, and he had read it, muted his cell and then tossed it on top of a white take-out carton, the noodles inside probably already congealed and cold.

The lighting on the driveway was poor, the occasional flickering, muted lamppost – more decorative than useful – the only thing to guide him as he wound up to the manor, leaves crunching beneath the tyres in a way that made his hands tighten on the wheel. He parked his car by the front entrance, and had only popped open the car door when one of the hulking manor doors swung open.

Unlike at the club, Jim recognised the henchman that stood at the doorway, the light that framed him glinting off the polished body of his gun. Jim slid the rest of the way out the car and held up his hands, and, after a minute, the guy – Gabe, Jim remembered, name attaching itself to the bulk of the body and the heavy lines of his face.

“Detective Gordon,” Gabe said. He didn’t raise his voice to accommodate distance, but Jim had no trouble hearing.

“I need to speak to Cobblepot,” Jim said, foggy breath dissipating into the night air.

Gabe was already shaking his head. “Boss ain’t taking visitors at this hour. You can make an appointment.”

Jim set his jaw and raised it, similarly shifting his stance so his intentions were loud and clear when he said: “Please.”

Gabe squinted at him, and then scowled and disappeared inside. The door closed after him, leaving Jim in the semi-dark, and he allowed a minute to pass before he strode to the stairs and up them, hand already a loose fist, half raised, teeth clenched over his lower lip—

The door pulled open again, the suddenness and brightness of the spill of light startling a curse from Jim. It must have startled Gabe, too, because he slapped a meaty hand against Jim’s chest, knocking the wind out of him firstly, before wrapping it around Jim’s shoulder and hauling him in with little grace.

Jim staggered, caught himself and jerked out of Gabe’s firm hold. There was an disjointed moment of truce, the unpleasant silence broken by the rough draw of Jim’s breath as they regarded each other. Jim moved first, straightening his spine, and then his suit jacket, before he inclined his head, indicating for Gabe to lead the way.

Gabe squinted a look at him and turned, taking them both to a room that branched from the main hall.

“Boss,” Gabe said, after a cursory knock. “Gordon to see you.”

The silence must have served for an answer and Gabe opened the door. He stood aside and gave Jim a look when he didn’t move immediately – a heavy-handed expression that expressed the rough estimate of what Gabe thought of Jim’s intelligence.

Jim ignored it and stepped in, door shutting after him.

The room was warmer than he expected, attention drawn first to the grand fireplace that sat behind the equally excessive dining table. He noticed Cobblepot second, lounging in the seat at the head of the table, the frame of the chair ornate enough to suggested clawed feet.

“Jim,” Cobblepot said, half rising from his chair to indicate to one that sat at his right hand. It was the only chair present, Jim suddenly doubting that Gabe asking had not been Cobblepot's first warning of a visit. “Please. Sit.”

Jim moved and did so, hands automatically folding on the table. He felt the heat from the fire, this side of too hot in his suit, and he itched to undo his tie, uncomfortably aware of the knot against his throat.

He asked, “Why not the club?”

Cobblepot gestured, had the gall to look smug, and his smile – at first thin and tight and testing – shifted to something more genuine, the only glimmer of something pleasant Jim ever saw in Cobblepot, and it always took him by surprise, this startling flash of latent attractiveness.

“That was all symbolic,” Cobblepot was saying. “The club didn’t matter in the overall scheme of things, you must understand, and it certainly doesn’t matter now that. Well,” a shrug. “You know,” Cobblepot paused again, expression half a wonder. Then he huffed a laugh, pleased. “But I’m keeping it, of course. It still does serve its purpose as a—”

“What do you know on McCreedy manor,” Jim said.

Cobblepot’s smile stuttered and died, and he stared at Jim, expression sharp, and Jim saw the gears switch in his head, whatever idea of reconciliation in a friendship that had always been so glaringly one-sided laid to rest. A part of Jim was satisfied that the message had finally gone through – whatever fantasy Cobblepot entertained had been just that, but it also closed a door to him and Jim felt it slam in his face.

But he pushed ahead. “There have been a series of murders possibly tied to the Falcone and Maroni. Three of the four are from five years ago—.”

“I’m afraid, Detective, I know nothing,” Cobbblepot said, voice cool for all the fire that snapped and crackled behind him. He had since set his chin in the cradle of his hand and surveyed Jim as if he was bored with the entertainment provided.

“And even so,” he said, “I don’t think you’re exactly in the position to ask any more requests of me. I called in my favour. I should have you know, I—” he stopped, pursed his lips together and then tried again, the anger that had been growing carefully held at bay now: “I would say that we are at an impasse, Detective Gordon. I think it would be a good idea if you leave. You could imagine that I have a lot on my plate right now. Gabe can assist you to the door, if you feel you need the help.”

The lines of Cobblepot’s body were taut, and Jim stared at his hand, the one holding his chin, the crafted suggestion of idle boredom ruined by the deep shadowed dents where Cobblepot’s fingers dug against his cheek. Jim glanced back up and overlaid the instance at the pier with now, trading the brittle chill for fire; the smell of fish and rust for that of smoke and ash.

“Suppose I offered another favour,” Jim said, the words light and careful.

The smile, this time, was indulgent, not unlike the one that Jim’s mother used to give him when he was young and stuffed full of ignorant notions of how the world worked.

“I’m not certain your favours are worth much,” Cobblepot said.

The smile disappeared.

“Thank you for your time,” Jim said after a loaded moment, the words chipped from a stone.

Cobblepot inclined his head and gestured in a subtle reflection of Mooney, enough so to have Jim trip back to the pier, the familiar weight of his glock a phantom presence in his hand.

Jim held his tie to his chest as he stood and he showed himself out.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Massive, massive warning for graphic violence in this chapter. I'm also glossing over police procedural a bit for the purpose of the story, so please excuse that. As always, any issues, please let me know. :)

Jim’s bad mood carried into the next morning, spent brooding over his case files. Like a cantankerous cat, Harvey had said when Jim had set his coffee down hard enough to have it slosh over the sides of his mug, making Jim spiteful enough to wonder out loud where Harvey had learned that particular word because it was rather long, wasn’t it?

There was a brittle truce not long after, both of them bend over their work, until Harvey sought to end it, apparently, and not very well, with: “You gonna write with that pen, or stab someone with it,” before he held up his hands and said, “Okay, okay,” at the look Jim gave him.

Jim stood, scrabbling for whatever papers littered his desk and stuffing them back into the file. “I’m going back to McCreedy’s,” he said.

“Whoa, whoa,” Harvey said, “hold it, Jimbo. Forensics are still working the place. You sit down, you leave them to do their job and wait like a normal person.”

Jim considered it – weighed the idea of sitting at his desk and pouring over his case notes against the concept of heading back to the McCreedy manor, the decaying house deep in the woods with all its secrets kept locked inside.

He grabbed his car keys, said, “Phone me if you need me,” and left.

-

It had taken Jim a while to come to terms with his fear of driving. He hadn’t been behind the wheel of the Humvee at the time; that had been Casper.

Jim eased the car into gear, heard the vehicle react with a popping of the exhaust and a slight whine from the engine. His palm threatened to slip over the gear knob, and so Jim focused on the road before him, acutely aware of the other cars, and the pedestrians that meandered on the sidewalks. Occasionally, someone would scoot out from between parked cars and glance both ways before quickly walking across, and Jim tracked each person who did it with his teeth clenched.

The drive was short once out of the city, streets wide and clear and mostly empty. Jim eased the car into fifth and wrapped his hands around the steering wheel, the hard plastic flexing under his grip as he scanned the landscape from his rear view to his side mirrors.

The Humvee had been built to absorb IEDs and the one they rode were the up-armoured versions, with a thicker and stockier chassis and inch thick bullet-proof glass. The first IED their vehicle had encountered had been almost novel: a muffled thump, a contained explosion and the odd sensation of the Humvee lifting and falling, nothing worse than guiding it over an obstacle. Jim remembered glancing over to Cas, who stared back with wide eyes. Marty in the back had been the first to break the silence, letting out a loud whoop that dissolved into the laughter of five men who had flirted with death and got out of it alive. A report on the incident later read that the device had failed to detonate correctly.

Jim breathed, eyes skittering from the road to the rear view mirror, and then to the side mirrors. The incident had compounded the circumstances his father’s death, and Jim remembered his therapist – Barbara taking him to the best one she knew – Claire, with dark skin and dark hair and an ever-present fold in her brow; Claire had said that he possessed a remarkable measure of will and control to even be able to even sit in a car, let alone drive it, let alone be a passenger. The rest of that session blurred; Jim unsure to this day if he ever responded.

The frontage of the McCreedy manor was a dilapidated echo of Cobblepot’s inherited estate – the long, winding driveway overrun by weeds, chunks of concrete loose and missing, leaving large potholes that collected brown water; it made Jim jostle in his seat, and he fixed his attention on the stead ahead.

Unlike what Harvey had said, the forensics team had cleared and left nothing but yellow tape and deeply bedded tyre tracks behind. This was another violation of protocol – he had no real authorisation to enter the crime scene, now that it had been cordoned with all the evidence collected and immediate surrounds photographed. He could contaminate it: an extra boot print, or tyre mark that would raise unnecessary questions and drag out the investigation… but the more immediate part of Jim, the burning, angry part of him, set the fact aside, and he yanked the park brake up, slammed the car door shut after him and ducked under the tape.

The front entrance of the manor was how he remembered it – run down, paint chipped and flaking and any decorative pieces eroded past repair. A single wood panel was wedged in place of a door, and Jim moved it aside, the rough edges of it scrapping his palms.

Back at the station, Jim had tried to get in contact with Eion McCreedy, the only details they had on the man being the address and a number which had rang out. Jim had left a clipped message, letting McCreedy know they had a few inquiries, but the state of the manor made Jim doubt a response.

Jim slid a hand against the wall, the dust thick on the surface. He rubbed his fingers together as he turned his gaze around the area, void of other officers; silence replacing the low hum of talk and infrequent shutter-snaps. Run down as it was, the suggestion of what it had been was present – the deep burgundy of the thready rugs, the chandelier too out of the way to be torn down, crystals catching each lost strand of light and reflecting it back. The patterned walls, the hint of a Fluer-de-lis in the dips and shadows, depending where light fell.

Cobblepot came to the abrupt forefront of Jim’s thoughts – old fashioned and presentable: the richness of his suits, material thick and expensive paired with the subtle brocade of his waistcoats, only really drawing Jim’s attention when turned the right way.

Jim glanced to the skirting boards and reset his thoughts, not particularly wanting to think of Cobblepot while he stood there with the lingering smell of decay in his lungs.

He climbed the stairs, each one audible beneath his weight. A forensic officer – Stephanie, Jim recalled – had discovered the hard way that the steps at the top had rotted through, the gaping hole only noticeable by the way the carpet sagged beneath it. Jim gave them a wide berth and moved to the main hall where the body had been discovered by a group of teenagers, who had, in their inebriation, first mistaken it to be the carcass of some animal.

The body had since been removed, but the smell of it hung like a thick curtain, deeper and darker than where it lingered through the front of the manor. Jim winced, unprepared, before he schooled himself and moved in. He picked around the area with care, used the tip of his shoe to brush aside any debris, avoiding the space where the liquefied parts of the victim had stained the floor. He worked on rote, shoulders slackening as he looked for hints or clues, the scuff of his shoes loud and echoed with nothing to buffer the noise.

Jim kept his thoughts on track, made a note of everything he upset or altered, but he found them drifting back to Cobblepot, to where he had sat, framed by the fireplace and throwing shadows along the length of the table; everything about him sharp and angled.

Cobblepot had addressed Jim in many shades, but never in that way: his jaw tight and posture guarded, the fold of his arm across his chest another layer between them.

Jim stopped once more, closed his eyes and let out a heavy breath. He didn’t want to linger on Cobblepot, didn’t appreciate how he cropped up in his thoughts again and again… but he had to acknowledge that he had compromised the space that existed, where he could interact with people like him and still come out clean. He needed that space. He needed if he was going to work in Gotham, where the framework and carriage of justice were too corrupt to bear weight.

Jim couldn’t help but huff out a laugh, the sound of it juxtaposed in the room and he jammed his fingers against the hollows of his eyes and quietly accepted that he was achieving nothing but wasting time and contaminating a crime scene. Essen would have his head. He would pick up a box of Danish pastries Harvey liked on his way back, and he turned to leave— then stopped.

Jim dropped to a crouch, sifted through the layer of dirt for the sliver of white and plucked out a single Polaroid, studying it as he straightened.

It was hard to tell of its age – Jim was certain he had photos of this quality in his mother’s albums, colours muted and the subject faintly blurred. It had been there for a while, the white paper frame speckled with water marks and a bloom of black mould, the picture inside gummy and washed out in places. Jim tried to make out the face of the subject, a male with a shock of blond hair that reminded him of Casper. Jim probably had a picture like this tucked away with the rest of his military career, photo folded in half where Cas had been grinning at the camera, the light from the desert sun slanted across his face and turning the brown of his eyes into gold. What had they been laughing about?

Jim slid the Polaroid into his pocket as he turned the memory over and over in his head, until the buzz of his cell started him back to the mid-morning chill of the manor. He took an unsteady breath. It was always a disorientating adjustment – the switch from his time in the Marines to the present.

The message was one from Lee and he sent a response and tucked his cell away.

The clatter, when it came a beat later, burst through the morbid quiet of the manor like a spark. Jim tamped down his surprise on reflex and withdrew his glock – firing stance assumed and muzzle pointed to the open doorway in the space of a breath.

Jim tilted his head, ears straining as his eyes darted from point to point, vaguely uneasy and trapped in a room on the second floor with boarded windows and one way out.

The muffled sounds of scuffing came from the room below, the groan of floorboards suggesting a decent weight, too even to be an animal – moving careful, heel and toe, as Jim was; slow, as Jim was.

Jim breathed easier once he moved to the relative openness of the hallway; a better vantage point, with the banister and thick wooden pillars for cover. He adjusted his hands on the grip of his gun, felt the stippled surface of it catch on his palm as he shifted his weight on his outside leg and angled his head to look over to the expansive hallway below without showing himself.

The shadow of a person moved just outside Jim’s vision, and he drew a quick, sharp breath and pulled back. His heart beat in his ears in a familiar steady rhythm, and he gathered himself, fingers flexing on his glock before he moved again – easing toward the staircase, the bulk of his concentration fixed on sight and sound.

The person below shuffled around and their caution quickly gave way to frustration that echoed in the open space, perfectly masking the quiet sounds of Jim’s movement. Male, he pegged, his accent suggesting lifetime spent in the heart of Gotham city.

Jim eased down onto the first stair, remembered too late that it was broken. His foot slipped through, the sudden give startling a ‘fuck!’ out of him, gun jolting out of his hands as he scrambled for balance. The glock clattered down the steps, spinning out the way as an explosion of sound came from the landing below. Something popped in Jim’s ankle when he wrenched it free, and he vaulted forward, tumbled down after his weapon, half limping, half falling, and too late as a shot rang out.

It was that same suspended-boom, that infinite second where nothing made sense before everything jolted back into action, too loud and too fast to make sense of.

Something had burned through the meat of his arm, caught just under the shoulder in a pinpoint too difficult to discern against the gagged flare of agony. Jesus, he’d been hit. Heat soaked through the sleeve of his jacket, fingers clammy as he grabbed his gun, swung wild and returned fire in a manoeuvre that would have shitted off his CO.

The man ducked behind a pillar and returned fire, and Jim staggered down to the first landing, right arm tucked against his side, his uneven stance and unsteady left hand drawing his shots wide. His clip ran out and Jim hissed a swear between his teeth, throwing himself down the rest of the staircase and scrambling behind a mirroring pillar. His breathing came ragged, suit wet through with blood and sweat. Jim thumped his head and clenched his teeth against the beat of pain, but it knocked something loose in his thoughts and he scrambled for his cell, fumbling through his pocket, awkwardly twisted—

A bullet blasted through the pillar and Jim jerked away from the spray of wood chips, ears ringing, tinny and high-pitched as it blanketed across his hearing. His fingers smudged blood on the keypad of his phone, and he managed to pull up his messages when it was kicked out his hands. Jim made an aborted grab for it, only to freeze at the click that broke through his momentary deafness.

He looked up.

It took a long second to recall the face, the flat, unassuming set of the man’s features; hair greying at his temples and pulled back into a tight ponytail. Jim had pointed out once to Lee, under his breath, that he looked a little like a hippo, with his wide nostrils and wet looking eyes. Lee had smothered a laugh, told him off, but still caught his eye when they went to the café, her expression enough for Jim to know what she was thinking.

The barrel of the gun shook in his face.

Craig, Jim remembered distantly, head pulling up snatches of Mel calling through the window of the kitchen, slapping the bell while she called out, _Craig. Big breakfast, eggs scrambled_ , and the answering _, A’wright, lady, jeez_. The noticeboard thick with photos came second.

Jim swallowed against the dryness of his mouth, adrenaline ebbing as the moment wore on. He was going to go into shock, could feel it in the growing fuzziness in his head and in the cold sweat broke along his skin. Jim licked his lips, bit the insides of his mouth as he tried to steady his breathing.

Craig had pitted out his shirt, and his breath kicked up – rapid ins-and-outs – Jim watching as the realisation of who he had shot turned over into what the fuck should he do now.

Tongue thick in his mouth, Jim said, “Put the gun down.”

Craig jolted, as if he had not expected Jim to speak. He steadied his gun and Jim saw his finger tighten against the trigger.

Jim tamped down on any instinctive action, pressed his weight back against the pillar and lifted his hands, tacky with his blood, palms out. He was acutely aware of how he shook, how much effort it took to raise the dead weight of his right arm.

“Please,” Jim said, the steadiness of his voice surprising to his own ears when all he wanted to do was to lean over and throw up.

Craig shook his head and steadied his hands, knuckles white against the gun. His voice was shredded when he spoke, when he managed to stutter: “M-my son,” and it made Jim think of a hostage situation he had diffused while serving, the slide of emotional extremes of the gunman, barrel pointed to a group of weeping children.

Words felt like water in Jim’s mouth, but he said, “We can work it out.”

“T-they killed him. He wasn’t involved. They just—”

The gun shook in Craig’s hands, the wrangle he had on his control unravelling until it gave way completely, weapon dropping onto the floor with a clatter that made Jim wince, expecting a discharge.

Craig scrubbed his blotchy face and scrabbled at his hair. “Oh Jesus,” his voice gluggy, “oh Jesus, I fucking shot a cop—I—”

A bang froze Jim in place, a sharp and sudden puncture of sound that made Jim’s heart thump hard against his ribs. He stared, wide-eyed, at Craig, who stared back, equally stunned before his face slackened, colour draining as the first wet sounds of scattered blood turned into a thin stream of noise. Jim looked down to where the blood pooled at Craig’s feet, deep and dark – aortal – flecks of it bright on Craig’s white sneakers. New. The realisation breaking through the sluggishness of Jim’s thoughts. The shoes were new.

Craig dropped to his knees and slumped to the floor, his body instinctually curled away from the pain. Jim watched as Craig groped a shaking hand at his chest for the bullet. It mustn’t have passed through, must have wedged into his body, tucked up against a bone or splintered into his organs to tear him up from the inside.

The thick smell of iron overrode the lingering scent of decay. Jim tasted it on the back of his tongue and he swallowed against a rising swell of nausea; took deep, desperate draws of air in an effort to root himself in the present and press back against the black that prickled the edges of his vision.

Craig mouthed something at him, the hand that had been at his chest extended, shaking, fingers curling and uncurling as his attempts to speak broke into small pieces of sound – until he heaved out a sob and stilled completely.

Jim screwed shut his eyes, scrambled to stop the bleed of helplessness through his body – the abrupt reality of letting Joey and Maree down, of letting Craig down; the recognition of the situation he was in. He could hear Harvey now, see the way he’d gesture, hands out and palms open like he could not believe he was saying it again: “Goddamnit, Jim. Don’t you ever wait for backup?”

Jim bit his lip, the sting of it a new bright pain that he latched to, that he used to ground his focus.

The guy wore expensive shoes. Jim could tell by the sound of them, solid against the carpeted floors.

Jim released a shuddering breath and shifted, the puncture in his shoulder beating in time with his heart as he used the pillar to brace before folding his legs. The slide of his calf caught Craig’s gun, the body of it still warm from discharge.

The shoes came to a stop in front of him, accompanied with the spicy, wooden smell of cologne that momentarily washed out everything else. Jim licked his dry lips and dragged up his eyelids, mustered a glare to the man who had dropped to a crouch before him. His unsteady focus was only able to take impressions: the neat blue suit. The black oxfords, the shadow of socks, patterned.

A second man moved with a degree of urgency the Suit didn’t possess, footsteps a beat off running. Jim dragged his attention to him when he appeared over the Suit’s shoulder, darker skin and shaved bald, small cut high on his cheekbone. His nose had been recently broken, the mottled green and the hint of yellow sweeping over the bridge before coming to crescent beneath his eyes.

“Shit, Creed,” Tracksuit said, voice scratchy and grating like sandpaper in an accent that originated a city over. “That’s Gordon. Jim Gordon from GCPD. Fucker’s all over the goddamn news.”

Creed stood and Jim watched the way the hem of his slacks hid the patterned socks, the memory of Mario’s shoes surfacing through the haze. Details were key. They were _key_.

“I had been hoping the manor would’ve been kept in a better state than,” the Suit paused. “This.”

“Mate, the place’s been kept in no state at fucking all,” Tracksuit said, “you have anybody keeping an eye on it for you?”

Jim set his eyes shut against the dizziness, but he listened, catching Creed respond with, “David” – the second half of the name slurred so it sounded more like, ‘Dafd’.

Tracksuit clicked his tongue. “Well. I’m here if you need me to break his legs.”

“Appreciated,” Creed said, “I have something in the truck that you could use,” and Tracksuit left, cheery, a skip in his goddamn step.

Creed said, once they were alone, the sound of his words pinned back: “I’m not particularly fond of collateral damage.”

Jim slit open his eyes and shoved his response through his teeth: “Should’ve thought of that before you killed him.”

“And then there’s you,” Creed said, as if Jim hadn’t spoken. He toed the body of Craig with the point of his shoe, taking care not to smear blood on the leather. “See, this one here. No one will miss him.”

“Fuck you,” Jim ground out, voice slipping. “Fuck you, he had a family.”

“But you. You they’ll notice.”

Harvey had said once that a flair for the dramatic was a prerequisite for crime lords. They had just left Mooney’s club, the smell of alcohol and perfume imprinted on their hands and suits, no real leads forthcoming despite the visit and for all of Harvey’s ass kissing – and Harvey had said, gestured, restless in a way that made Jim wonder if Harvey used to smoke out his tension, he said: “Fish and all those kinds, they have a thing for drama, kid. You see any of that shit, safe bet to think they’re up to something.”

Jim shackled his awareness to the gun pressed against his leg and lurched up. It was an awkward fumbling catch, thumb hooking round the trigger and turning the barrel down towards his knee. He hadn’t accounted for his ankle or the way his leg folded under him the second he bore weight on it, and it jerked a grunt from him, equal parts pain and surprise as he staggered.

Creed had jerked back and immediately stuck out when Jim moved. He cracked his gun against Jim’s jaw, the sound sharp and wet and clean as it snapped Jim’s head to the side.

Blood flooded his mouth, ears ringing with the echo of his jaw dislocating; agony shooting through the mandible to hook in the soft hollow spots below his ears where everything unhinged. Jim sunk to his knees. His head reeled, the previous five seconds a continuous record skip: the crack of sound and the force of the blow playing over and over.

All he could taste and smell and see was blood. It pounded in his head and behind his eyes, it dribbled between his teeth, stringy with saliva; his jacket cold and wet with it, colour deep and almost black against what had once been a cool soft grey. And then he was yanked up, dragged to his feet by the back of his shirt, the buttoned collar and the knot of his tie cutting beneath the jut of his Adam’s apple. Jim clawed at his throat for breath.

“You know what,” Creed’s accent was obvious in his anger now and it was Gotham all over, all the ugly parts of it. “I think I’ll take you with me. Wouldn’t hurt to have Jim Gordon at my disposal.”

Everything roiled in Jim’s head, the scattered smells and sights and sounds, instances of static that cut through and fuzzed everything out whenever the pain came to an abrupt crest. His ankle repeatedly threatened to fold as Creed manoeuvred him, and he staggered over the loose legs of Craig’s body, the only thing keeping him upright being Creed’s hand bunched at the back of his neck.

The late morning air was cold against Jim’s overheated skin, but it registered as nothing more than a shudder, too disorientated to take stock of what was happening until he was shoved against the police vehicle.

Jim came to with the taste of sun-warmed metal against his slack mouth, the heat of his breath uncurling against the panel as he drew shaking lungfuls of air. Creed was turning out his pockets, weight of his forearm across Jim’s shoulders and Jim bucked to throw him off.

Creed swore, planted a hand to the back of Jim’s head and smashed against the high arch of the car window. The sense of his body fell away as stars exploded behind his eyes, followed by a sudden drop, what little in Jim’s stomach abruptly leaving him in a wet gasp.

“Try it again,” Creed said, voice muffled through the ringing of Jim’s ears.

The double click of doors unlocking were like two bullets through his head before Jim was shoved into the backseat, choking back a sound as the pain crested, swept up in a tidal wave of blood, black and the catch of blue desert sky – and it balanced on a knifepoint, wavered like a breath held... and tipped Jim into unconsciousness.

-

Jim squints under the full glare of the sun and then sweeps his attention to where the company is spread out. The Humvees sit on the parameter of the area, lined up after another, the doors and engine bays open so that air can circulate through and cool everything down. Marty’s maintaining the rifle and its mount, ensuring that it doesn’t jam. It had done so twice already – oil drying, making the metal tacky and all caught up with sand. Even in the distance, Jim can tell he’s swearing while he does it – mouth forming the shape of _fuck_ and _shit_ , and various combinations of the two put together. Everything still smells of diesel and sand, but by now, Jim’s certain that a shade of it has made home of his lungs – he’ll always smell it.

The field that they’ve occupied is thick with knee high grass, and it crunches beneath his feet as he moves to join Cas, who Jim’s spotted sprawled out in a clearing with his hands on his belly. He’s tucked near a sparse tree and the shadow of it dapples across his face where it falls across the sharp line of his nose and the full sweep of his lower lip. It disguises the purple that sit under his eyes, too, the colour like bruises brought on by lack of sleep— but then it highlights the weight he’s lost in the sharp cut of his cheeks, the space hollowed beneath the bone. It also casts his hair a darker shade, more brown than blond, almost matching the sand that pillows his head.

There’s a tube of MRE milkshake that’s been very carefully rolled up from the bottom laid beside him, because, above all, Cas is very precise. It makes Jim smile, and he nudges him with his boot to let Cas know he’s there before he drops on his ass by Cas’s elbow, puffs of dust billowing out.

Cas doesn’t open his eyes, but he’s grinning now, and he says, “Hey, Gordon. You tried one of those milkshakes yet? They taste like shit.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Final chapter is lined up for editing, but it's also the messiest, so bear with me :'D. Thanks for reading!!


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello! I'm sorry that this chapter took forever and a day to post! I've been agonising over it for ages now, and while I'm not completely satisfied with it, I've edited it the best I could and decided to post it so that the story is finished at least :,,). 
> 
> Massive thanks to sunlitroom/still_and_clear for going over this and reassuring me it was all okay (even if it took me a year to finish it;;)
> 
> A heads up for lots of injury discussion. It shouldn't be any worse than S3 of Gotham (and what a ride S3 was my god) (& while we're here, I'm going to mention that I still don't buy Jim's dark side, nope).

*

Jim snapped into consciousness and vomited. He coughed through the burn of his sinuses, disorientated and only half-aware of the sound of someone jerking from their chair.

“Shit,” they said, the word coiled and tight; consonants ground hard and angled between teeth.

Jim closed his eyes and opened them to the sight of a shaved head, the bold lines of a rose faint through the growing fuzz and it took another blink to make sense of it — how he was tipped on his side on the edge of a ratty mattress with something propped against his back to keep him steady while Tracksuit kneeled on the floor and sopped up the mess with a rag.

Tracksuit sat back and looked up. The bruises sat stark on his face, the spread of yellow and green deepening to purple over the crooked bridge of his nose. It didn’t retract from his appearance, less so once the injury would clear and leave behind the sharp lines of Tracksuit’s cheekbones, his dark eyes and full mouth.

“Hey, man,” Tracksuit said, slow and careful, like he knew how the words vibrated through Jim’s skull. Tracksuit slid his tongue against his bottom lip and said again, “Hey, man. On the bright side, you’re alive, right?”

Jim’s jaw ached and he couldn’t clip his teeth shut. His tongue sat thick and slippery in his mouth and tasted like old blood and bile. His throat clicked with the effort to swallow and the jostle sent a wave of pain through his head — too big in the cage of his skull where it threatened to split.

Tracksuit reached up and palmed Jim’s head. Even through the miasma, Jim recognised the misplaced tenderness to the touch, fingers light and fleeting, at odds with the person and the situation. It felt more like a threat than anything else, and his stomach coiled and he jerked away. 

The agony was expected, but he’d forgotten he couldn’t brace — that he couldn’t bite his tongue against it or set his jaw. He could only breathe, breath sawed from his lungs, until his vision swam back into focus.

Tracksuit stood and wiped his hands on the seat of his battered jeans, and he leaned over to brace them against the inward curve of Jim’s shoulders.

Jim was eased onto his back, pain spiking with each nudge and adjustment, each time Tracksuit arranged a part of him too stiff or shaking for Jim to move himself. His clothes were sweat-damp by the time he was propped up against the headboard, beading on his too-hot skin, and catching onto his fringe, and dripping into his eyes where it stung. Jim focused on his breath, on the push and pull of his ribcage and sternum. It felt wet to breathe.

“Drink,” Tracksuit said before the rim of a cup was pressed against Jim’s mouth.

The sense memory of being a kid and his mother tending to him during a fever made Jim compliant, but the stinging tang of bile nested on Tracksuit’s fingers made his stomach turn, and the mouthful of water on his tongue dribbled down his throat and out of his mouth and he coughed again — each one a blast of pain-pain-pain.

Tracksuit swore and pulled away, returning to wipe the spilled water with the back of his hand, knuckle clipping the burning swell of Jim’s lip.

“Jesus,” he was saying and Jim locked onto the drag of his vowels in an effort to stay in the present. He felt detached from his bod, aware while not existing in its frame. “You fucking did a number on yourself—“

Tracksuit shifted Jim back onto the bed, then leaned over him to adjust what was bunched up against Jim’s back to keep him in place. A thin silver chain fell from the collar of Tracksuit’s t-shirt as he bent, crucifix swinging in the foot of space between them, glinting faintly.

Tracksuit continued. “Creedy was pissed enough with the whole deal fallin’ through, let alone comin’ back and the manor—I mean, shit, man. You heard it, right? David? Stripped the whole goddamn place of anything worth anything and fenced it. Creed’s got people trackin’ him now—“ 

Jim slit his eyes open, unsure when he’d closed them and he inadvertently met Tracksuit’s gaze. Tracksuit inhaled and his focus skittered away before turning back to Jim. He swallowed, Adam’s apple bobbing, and scrubbed a hand against the back of his head as he straightened.

“Just. Yeah,” Tracksuit said. “Call out, if you need anything.”

-

It’s his first leave since boot. Jim measures it in the widened breadth of his shoulders, the thicker span of his thighs, and the number of push-ups he can achieve in a row.

They’re on the west coast, an entire continent from Gotham. It had never occurred to Jim while growing up he could miss the grey weight of clouds or the ever-present slick of wet pavement, but in the balmy heat of the west coast he finds that he does.

The night’s hot in a heavy way, wet against his skin. Jim drags his nails over his shorn head, scalp prickling with sweat that never cools him down, that dries on his skin as another thin coat he can’t shrug out of. He wets his fingers on his beer bottle. The condensation is warm, and he slides it on his nape where the it mixes with sweat and does nothing to cool him.

The bartender doesn’t notice the way it bears down and continues to fill orders with a bright smile. He had set a tumbler of ice cubes by Jim’s elbow at some point and Jim crunches on another one, swills the coolness of it in his mouth and swallows before he drains the last of his beer and sticks a couple of notes under the bottle. Jim’s grateful to leave, exposed with his back presented to the open floor of the bar.

He waves to the tender as he slides out of his seat, and the tender distractedly waves back while he fields another complaint about the lack of AC. Jim notices how he gestures to the fan overhead, the timbre of his voice carrying while the words do not — and he also notices the bare length of his forearm, how it shines with sweat and turns the olive of his skin a fine, fine gold.

The strip where the bar sits is a street over from the beach, and the bite of salt and sand is thick enough to taste. The rush of the tide is punctuated by the shrieks of tourists and the shrill of car horns. Up ahead, someone revves their engine and the sound of a supercharged V8 appeals to the eighteen year old Jim who still resides in the 21 year old version, and Jim angles his head to catch the angry glint of taillights before the car launches off the line and fishtails up the street. A group of men cheer and holler and there’s a crack of glass on the pavement followed by laughter.

Someone grabs his elbow, thumb digging into the hollow beside the funny bone.

“Hey,” Cas says, voice breaking over the murmur of the crowds.

Jim’s heart thuds against his ribs in tired heavy beats.

“I told you to wait at the bar,” Cas says, and he grins, shadows collecting in the dimples framing his mouth.

Jim shrugs. “I waited.”

“Yeah. For a minute.”

It’s only when Cas starts rooting through a small bag slung over his wrist that Jim notices it. The colourful wrappers of at least a dozen candy bars press against the plastic, but it’s a soft pack Cas retrieves, triumphant.

“Here,” Cas shoves the bag to Jim.

The plastic crinkles in Jim’s hands and he rolls the bag up and tucks it under his arm as Cas knocks out a cigarette and lights up. The shadows from his smiling mouth shift to the hollow of his drawn cheeks when he inhales, brow drawn and tight, directing Jim’s gaze to the long line of Cas’s nose and down down down to his mouth.

He doesn’t look like he’s enjoying it, expression tight and concentrated, and Jim has enough time to wonder what Cas is looking for, exactly, before Cas’s expression relaxes, lips loose around the filter and a little wet. There’s a glimmer of tongue behind his teeth, shiny-white in the snatches of light. Jim inhales the syrup-thick beach air and thinks he feels the drag of sand through his lungs.

Cas exhales, and smoke disappears in the air the same way Jim’s breath used to in Gotham’s chilly winters, when he’d climb out the window of his childhood home and perch on the roof where it made him feel big, like he could command the same respect from the neighbourhood as his father did. Cas offers him the soft pack and Jim shakes his head, and so Cas tucks it into a pocket and gestures for the plastic bag. The cigarette is pinched between Cas’s knuckles as he opens it and he shakes the contents.

“Here,” he says.

Jim shakes his head again because it’s too hot for chocolate and he’s never been much of a sweet tooth anyway.

“C’mon, Jimmy,” he says. “Help me out a little.”

Cas finishes the cigarette and flicks the butt in a bin. He eats a candy bar then says, as he sucks the last of the chocolate from his fingers, “Stephanie, right?”

“Yeah.”

“How long were you at it?”

Jim counts. “About five years. Cumulative.”

“All through high school, right? Shit, you didn’t do the—“ Cas feigns slipping a ring on his wedding finger. “Purity ring thing. Promise ring? Did you?” 

A pause before, “I’m guessing by the look that the answer’s no… or—“ at Jim’s eyeroll, “or—Maybe. Wow.”

“And you wanted help,” Jim says. “For this.”

“Five years and dumps you by an email that you only manage to read nearly two months after it’s sent,” Cas says it like he doesn’t hear him. “Jesus, that’s rough.”

“I’m fine,” Jim says, when his annoyance fails to turn into something sharper. “It doesn’t bother me.”

They wander through the tourist strip and onto the quieter streets fringing the ocean and Jim tilts his head into the breeze. It’s cool, but too salty to be refreshing.

“Maybe you should be,” Cas says finally. 

The culture of service does not have a place for these words, individual and human but instead of taking them back, Cas clarifies, slides his attention to Jim in the half-light, out of reach of the yellow-orange sodium lamps and cast instead in a milky blue from the moon hung overhead. 

Cas says, “You should feel bothered.”

-

His heart throbbed through his bones in a slow dragging rhythm, reminding Jim of that step below panic and how he’d been too weighed down, too packed beneath humidity for his body to jump into fight or flight.

Jim slid his tongue against his lips and tasted blood. Tracksuit had only left after wrangling Jim to the bathroom, the silence ringing after his presence. He had taken Jim down the hall, his hand bunched around Jim’s good arm and worked quiet for once. No murmured condolences or the chatter of someone used to talking to people half-dead and delirious with it. Tracksuit had concentrated on his task, mouth set he led Jim through the facilities.

But then he also sat Jim down on the closed toilet lid and wiped Jim’s face with a cloth that smelled like mildew. He’d dabbed at the split skin on Jim’s mouth and thumbed the hinge of Jim’s jaw, considering. Jim had to close his eyes and breathe through the quiet agony of the touch, the world unsteady, coming in waves.

Jim shut his eyes against the thin light filtering through the curtains. He hazarded that it was late morning. A full 24 hours since he’d first set foot in McCreedy’s manor. Someone would have noticed he was missing and Lee came to the forefront of his mind — the way she’d look at him with her mouth downturned, her lips tight and pinned back. 

Would it work for or against him, he wondered, if he found a way from the situation he was in. If he turned up at the station under his own steam, broken but alive, and it would soften her anger or disappointment any less.

The sunlight inched across the mattress and warmed his legs. His head felt thick and packed with cotton, bones heavy and aching. Jim touched his hand to his other wrist, slid his fingers up until he met bandaging and the torn fray of his shirt sleeve. 

He swallowed, grating, sticky, and wet. And then steadied his breathing and looked.

The bandage was a torn portion of his shirt sleeve that was tied over itself to keep it in place. However neat it was, it didn’t disguise the blotchiness of blood and pus on the fabric. He pressed the tips of his fingers to the area below, where his skin swelled and dimpled with cellulitis. His heart beat in the touch.

Sweat broke fresh on his brow when Jim moved. It layered over the film of old blood, old sweat, and crusted dirt Tracksuit failed to clean off. Nausea threatened, swelled at the back of his throat as he dragged his body to a stand. The world tilted to one side but he steadied, easing his weight on his sprained ankle where it sparked a fury, lancing up his leg that almost knocked his knee from under him. He held it there.

Jim took a testing step, then another. It held. He stared at the door across the room.

Hair stuck to his temples and sweat beaded across his upper lip. His shirt clung to his back, skin hot and material cold. 

Jim stopped lifting his bad leg to walk. Let drag after him. He snatched at the door and the handle was a cool slide of metal on the tips of his fingers as the floor rushed up to meet him.

-

He curled against the carpet, mouth pressed to the sandy-earthy taste of it as he breathed through the aftershock of the fall. His body rung and shuddered with it. His thoughts circled with it and he fisted his hands, thumbs tucked against his palms and squeezed tight with the need to hold something.

Silence rippled through the house. That same goddamn silence, over and over again. That suspended boom before the thud thud thud of rapid gunfire. And it beat through the ground. Vibrated through his bones. Jim ground his fingers in the sand. 

Hands slid over Jim’s shoulders, soothing then persistent as he was dragged upright in a room— 

—pinned under a sheet of metal with Cas’s hands folded over the curve of his shoulder, palm hot and he—

—staggered beneath the weight of his own body.

Tracksuit talked through it all, “—negotiating with.”

And, “you can’t—…stay here. Creed’ll have your ass, I’m fucking serious, man. He’s fucking pissed enough with whatshisface—”

Then he stopped, crouched on the floor by the mattress with Jim’s head turned towards him, aware of the taut sound of Tracksuit’s voice.

“Look,” he said. “Look. As soon as the shit with Penguin’s done, Creed’ll deal with you. Think about what you can offer.”

-

Jim came to facing a mug with an illustration of a reindeer stamped across it. The red nose had a metallic sheen and the smile underneath was large and comical, popping beyond the lines of the reindeer’s face. 

He stared. Fixated on it like it was a crossword he couldn’t figure out. There was always the option of asking Harvey, who had proved on at least one occasion, to have a vocabulary beyond street food, alcohol, and demanding that Jim wait for backup.

Jim blinked, tired and heavy, the antlers and the thin curve of the reindeer’s leap across the white porcelain fuzzing in and out of focus. Had his mother left it there for him…? Was that her on the phone again? Calling his father, telling him that she was worried, James’s temperature was still climbing, _Should I take him to emergency, Peter_?

Jim inhaled. The house, up until that point, had stood in silence, save for Tracksuit, but now there was the murmur of voices, the measured clip of shoes. It was like seeing a spit of land across the ocean, visible beyond the tip of his fingers and all he needed to do was reach out—

Silence fell again, blanketed across the downstairs rooms of the house and something jolted in the pit of Jim’s stomach. He scrabbled across the mattress while _I’m up here_ jammed itself in the back of his gummed-up throat. He couldn’t breathe. His vision curled at the edges before he was able to scramble his way back, and Jim threw up a mouthful of bile and dragged in a mouthful of air in the same breath. He spat, coughed.

Downstairs, someone spoke and Jim sagged. His head light, dizzy with relief. 

He exhaled. Inhaled. Then he fisted his good hand and beat it on the floor, accepting the way the world faded around him as the shock of the movement blasted through his body. Blood burst fresh in his mouth like a minted penny and the ringing in his ears muffled any immediate response.

The world stilled, the silence filled by the rapid beating of his heart. 

Jim moved, heaved off the mattress and onto his legs which held him for no longer than a second before he staggered sideways onto the wall. Head bowed, Jim let it take his weight. He licked his lips, the skin dry and flaking. A bead of sweat slid down the column of his neck and bled into the collar of his shirt.

A thud rattled through the house, followed by a loud shout. Jim curled a hand against the wall.

Downstairs someone spoke. The demand in his tone clear despite the layers between them. 

Not Tracksuit, Jim identified, slow as it was. Not Creed.

The speaker tuned his voice into something lighter, dulcet, and when he failed to receive a response — words out of reach of Jim’s ears — and Creed answered with something short and sharp. 

Another silence. 

A clipped word.

Gunfire.

Jim moved on autopilot, hand jerking to his hip for his gun. Nothing.

The heavy thud of someone climbing up the stairs jerked his attention back to the door. Jim’s breath came fast and heavy as he cast around for a weapon. The uneven thud came up the hallway, faster than Jim anticipated. His eyes fell on the mug.

The door opened and Jim lifted his head, and the abrupt stab of panic dissolved at the person who stood at the door. Pale eyes wide and mouth parted as if he had prepared to speak only to have the words pulled from under him. 

Jim stared at the lines of his face, the sharp angles of it, the smooth planes of it. All of it framed in black, all of it familiar in a pleasing way.

Tension bled from his body like a severed artery, and Jim let himself slide to the floor, teeth clipping together in a painful jolt as he hit the ground. And he stared up to the black and bone-white of Oswald Cobblepot, the vision of him clouding over and Jim slurred out, “Cas, I—“

-

He’s riding passenger side in the Humvee, the weight of his M4 a familiar comfort in his hands, finger sweaty against the trigger as he scans the jostling horizon.

The smell of diesel is thick in the air and it blends with the more encompassing scent of sand, sheets and sheets of it, packed and baking beneath the steady, unrelenting glare of the sun. But then, it also smells like five unwashed adult men, too: all musk and sweat and unwashed combat uniforms. It’s in turn disgusting and familiar.

James watches the scenery pass in a monotonous blur of sand, sparse trees and the occasional concrete house, distractedly aware of the sweat sliding down his neck and into the collar of his uniform.

He tucks the butt of his rifle securely against his body and unpeels his hand from the trigger, fingers gritty and sticky with sand and sweat that he wipes on the leg of his trousers, the material stiff with it, and he turns to the driver of the Humvee — a Marine who’s known as Casper because of his white-blond hair and pale skin which is, these days, scattered with an distracting number of freckles.

Casper’s laughing, all teeth, and the corners of his brown eyes crinkle as he flicks a look back, and then the vehicle is flung through the air, metal tearing, the suspended-boom of an explosion coming a beat later and the next thing Jim knows is the beat of his heart.

It’s difficult to process what’s going on. Jim blinks blood from his eyes and stares the upturned chassis of the Humvee, the thick wheels still slowly spinning in the air.

A scrabble of sound breaks through the static of his head. There’s a sharp grate, a pause, and another scuffle. Jim looks to the source and sees Cas wrench himself free from the wreckage. Cuts pepper his exposed skin and there’s a thick spilt on his brow bleeding freely over his face. Cas lifts a hand up and touches his shoulder and his fingers glisten red when he pulls them away.

Jim watches as Cas touches his cheek, mouth. As he touches his chest, torso and what he can reach of his legs.

The sound of engines and the rough catch of tyres gripping sand grind through the shrill silence. There’s the yelling and calls from men over that, muffled by distance but growing louder. Cas turns and catches his gaze.

Jim’s focus is too unsteady to discern details. And in the process of recovery, and in the stagger of the days and weeks and months that follow, the recollection grows faded and jumbled. Some parts distant, some parts sharp and clear, the sum of it still a weight Jim bears in the present. 

He remembers Cas though. How it felt like to see him – to see the lines of his face, the angles of it, the smooth planes of it; all of it framed in desert sand, all of it familiar in a pleasing way.

He remembers that.

-

Jim came to in stages. First to the steady hum and the occasional beep of electrical equipment, and then to the weight of his body pinned to the mattress. He wasn’t lying flat. Someone set the top half of the bed at an angle and it left his face open to the white strip light overhead. Jim turned his head to escape it, the pillowcase papery against his ear and cool from the recycled air.

The sound of someone moving dragged Jim’s attention back outward, away from the muffled confines of hazy thoughts and the welcome dark of behind his eyelids. A small part of him lurched into panic and he prised his eyes to narrowed slits.

Lee’s face swam into focus a long minute later — her smile wet and wavering. It didn’t take long for her to give up on it, and she leaned forward to press a careful kiss to his brow, lips dry but warm, her hair curtaining them from the room so that the gesture was intimate in the sterility of the hospital room. She drew away, wiped her tears with the heel of her hand. 

Jim wanted her back. Wanted to wipe them away himself, pull her to him and kiss her, but the need didn’t convert into the energy to move, limbs like lead where they lay. So he tried for speech instead. Hello. Hi. _I'm sorry_ , or, _Thank you_. And he managed to get his throat unstuck, but the pull to sleep was too much and he found himself sinking quickly into the welcome comfort of sleep.

Something touched his hand then, warm, and it curled against the looseness of his fingers. It took everything Jim had to squeeze back.

-

He came to next as if he had been abruptly tipped onto the floor. The breath wrenched from his lungs as his body braced on reflex for an impact that never eventuated. 

The strip light overhead was off now, and Jim stared in the relative darkness of the room, heart thrumming in his chest, and failed to find what woke him until someone said, “How considerate of the Master Bruce Wayne to send you a card. It’s a touch trite, but he is only young.”

The pitched nasal of Oswald Cobblepot clicked into recognition a beat later, standing by the visitor’s chair set at the far corner of the room where Alfred moved it after their visit. 

The card was propped open in Oswald’s hand, the glossy front of it subdued in the soft light. 

Inside, Jim knew, it read for him to get better, but what it didn’t say was how Alfred and Bruce persuaded Lee to join them for dinner earlier that evening. Or how Bruce talked to her in a quiet, mature charm that Jim had once thought was oddly placed on someone so young, but that Bruce had settled comfortably into somewhere along the line.

It didn’t say those things, but then, it was only a card.

Oswald set it back in place and crossed the room. The darkness exaggerated his uneven gait, and Jim watched his approach with the growing awareness of the cast he wore and the way his arm was strapped to his chest. He turned his good arm inwards and pressed it against his side, mindful of the thread of IV while reluctant to show the soft white parts of his body.

“Cobblepot,” Jim said. His voice cracked and he tried again. “I’m not sure if it’s entirely clear, but I’m not up for any games right now.”

Oswald’’s expression shifted. His mouth tightened until his lips ran white, eyes pale and intense in the available light. Then he reined it in a second later. Battered it all down to a tight smile with such deft control that Jim doubted the icy flash of anger, and he paused, now unsure if it ever existed.

Jim struggled to sit up. Something in his jaw clicked at the effort and he hissed at the flare of pain that overrode the muffled comfort of painkillers. Oswald grabbed his arm and they both froze. Jim stared up at him and Oswald stared back. The new angle and the lighting obscured half Oswald’s face, and it reminded Jim of Harvey Dent a little – the way the shadows hid the full flush of expression and made it difficult to discern intent. The moment dragged until Jim pressed himself back onto the bed.

“I have to say,” Oswald breathed in the lingering silence. “I can’t help but notice a certain familiarity to this.”

“Just do what you want,” Jim said.

“Who was Cas?” 

“Cas?”

“Yes,” Oswald said. “You called me that when I found you— ah, half dead after cavorting with the Irish. That’s been dealt with, by the way. You needn’t trouble yourself.”

Jim looked at him.

“We were in together,” he said, finally. 

Then, and as savage as he could muster, “You couldn’t be any more different. He was—“

He was Cas, with his white blond hair and dark brown eyes — a complete opposite to Oswald Cobblepot in every way it counted.

“A friend. You called me by his name,” Oswald said.

“I would have called Lee by his name,” Jim told him. “If she was in your place.”

Oswald hummed and Jim watched, wary, as Oswald’s attention wandered through the room and across the hospital wares. Jim’s fingers twitched when Oswald regarded the IV machine, the various bags of fluid suspended from it like an absurd hat rack. Then Oswald looked down to Jim’s hand, and Jim felt a ghost of a touch arc across the back of it. The muscles in Jim’s stomach jumped, hyper-aware now as the touch went over the bump of the cannula, tracing up along his wrist until it petered off at the swell of his forearm.

“When,” Oswald started, his voice deliberately clear. “We escaped Eastern Europe, we had to leave family behind. It was the situation, you see. There was never any certainty that another chance to leave would present itself to us.”

Oswald shifted, reaching up to clasp the painful swollen curve of Jim’s jaw. Jim flinched, but Oswald held him in place.

“Look at me,” he said. “You need to listen.”

Oswald’s eyes were clear and light despite the darkness of the room. They were always so bright, so bright, like glass. Like looking into clear water and finding his reflection staring back. 

Jim smelled blood but he couldn’t tell from where: his mouth or Oswald’s hands. He was too tired now. He couldn't figure it out.

“The past is something that will always define us,” Oswald spoke quick and low, like he was aware of Jim's flagging energy and needed to say his part. “It’s an underline to the choices we make.” A pause. “The people we care for. _Jim_ , do you understand?”

The weight of Oswald was by Jim’s shoulder, the smell of blood stronger with the proximity and Jim closed his eyes to it and thought of Creed, and Tracksuit. And Craig, and Lee, and the blood-dark bloom of fleur-de-lis patterned on the walls.

“It’s not a weakness. It’s never a weakness if you can utilise it to drive you. Hear me.”

Jim jerked, blinked his eyes open back to Oswald whose words scattered in his head.

Pain suffused through his jaw but any sound he made was smothered by the press of Oswald’s mouth. Inelegant as it was. Impatient as it was. It lingered. Sharp and intent.

Jim turned his head from it and Oswald’s mouth rested hot and soft at the corner of his lips and Oswald kissed him there, too, chaste, and he remained there for a breath longer before he drew away and straightened.

“Take care, Jim Gordon,” Oswald said. “Think of me. I will of you when it happens.”

-

The dream ends at the airport. They’re dressed in civvies and the tags on Casper’s luggage read Josh Anderssen.

Cas smiles, eyes crinkling at the corners, dimples flashing. “Barbara, huh?”

Jim says, “Yeah.”

“I’ll be waiting for an invite to the wedding,” Cas tells him, and Jim scoffs because it’s expected of him.

There’s a beat, the silence thick despite the crisp open white of the airport and the thin sense of privacy. 

Then Cas says, “Hey,” and he shifts his hold on his luggage and reaches up to palm Jim’s shoulder, heat bleeding through the thin material of Jim’s shirt, grip firm and solid.

Cas has always run hot and Jim has a sensory album of the heat of Cas’s hands and the burn of his presence. He has a visual of the beads of sweat at Cas’s brow along with the way they slide down the sun-warm blood-warm column of his neck, and it sears through Jim’s body now as it did then, curls in the pit of his stomach in a way both tremendously exciting and familiar.

Cas shakes him a little. “Think of me before you do anything stupid, okay? You were in way too long, buddy. Go be an accountant or something.”

They both know Jim won’t ever be an accountant, but he smiles and says, “Okay.”

Something shifts in Cas’s expression — the plush line of his mouth soothing out and turning polite and he cuts his attention away to settle it on the languid pace of someone passing by.

Desert sand is dust-fine and it jams anything it gets into. But it had also run through Jim’s fingers like water, like the moment they’re in — reality feeding into their bubble with the reminder call for Cas’s flight and the overlaid thunk thunk thunk of a million little suitcase wheels skidding over the tilted floors.

Cas turns back to Jim. “You take care, Jimmy. Hit me up when you’re settled. Gotham, yeah? I’ve never been to that side of the country. We’ll catch up.”

“Sure thing, Cas,” Jim says. “Will do.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for reading! & to those to stuck with the story :D

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading!


End file.
